I think the problem is that sort of revenue doesn't exist in the league. We're talking mostly about franchise values and money individual ownership groups have put in their teams. And that's not really money that can be spread across multiple divisions. The money itself and especially the TV money, just isn't enough to support a full football pyramid. I think the path to promotion/relegation is MLS and soccer in general growing to the point where it's on the level of the NBA or NFL and just has a massive TV contract and because of the size of the US market, even teams in the second division are still have very large market values. You'd probably need to really grown international interest in the league as well.
I like what you're getting at, it doesn't have to be forced, when it's time it'll be obvious. MLS will have relegation at some point, and I look forward to it, but I can wait until it's basically a no brainer.
I think the bigger issue that hurts MS over promotion/relegation is the way the salaries are allocated and all the different player types to support the weird salary structures. The designated players, senior or junior internationals, home-growns, etc. It makes decoding a team way more work than it should be. Any time you talk about transfers you have to wade into a morass of confusing regulations to figure out if your team is even allowed to add this or that guy. It quickly becomes less about discussing players and soccer stuff and gets into discussing the business side of things and sorting through rules and regulations unrelated to the on-field stuff. For me, all that is a far bigger annoyance than the promotion relegation stuff. And it forces teams to take on unbalanced rosters to be competitive because spending the same money on a balanced roster is impossible in favor of letting teams overspend for 2-3 guys and discount shop for the rest of the roster.
Thank you, and I agree about the competitive nature of athletics. That’s why I think the increase in competition from pro/rel is a bit overstated. I think it definitely matters, but I think that pressure from other things is confused for pressure over relegation. for one, all of the salary rules in mls pretty much force teams to not have much depth. If you’re a decent starter, you’re usually not going to be pushed too much by the guy on the bench behind you because he’s not nearly as good. also, other leagues just pay a lot more. In any profession, the more more money that’s on the line, the more intense things will be. then you have the cultural factors. Players and coaches in Europe get death threats when they struggle, and have the media tracking everything they do. The fans just care a lot more. That’s bad in some ways, but good in terms of the effort the players put in. Just think about American football. If England or Spain or Germany started a tiered league system, but the fans didn’t care that much, and the pay wasn’t that great, does anyone think the games would be more intense than a browns-colts game in December? I don’t think so.
Players want to win. They want to be in the first division to be in the first division. It's one of the reasons why I am always a little befuddled when people say that things like pro/rel are a primary motivation. The money is important, but the shared money in MLS isn't that much anyway. But that said, if you are talking owner motivation, I don't think any form of pro/rel would really motivate the few MLS owners left who don't spend and don't try. It certainly wouldn't motivate John Fisher, who has killed his fan base (and therefore revenue) in a league where the media revenue ain't much. It's a tax shield and an appreciating asset for Fisher and nothing else. Others, like Kroenke, will simply spend enough to stay up, but Colorado is already a midtable team. The teams that have finished in the Spoon recently haven't actually been entirely spending problems. Cincy won it three years in a row, and now they are super exciting! The Galaxy won it one year and spending amount is not their issue. Chicago is down there and they spend a ton. Same with Toronto. Houston has a new owner who is spending. In terms of low spenders, you've got San Jose (doesn't give a shit), Colorado and Real Salt Lake (mildly competent midtable, won't be relegation threatened), Philly (super capable), and DC United... Okay, it might motivate DC United. And they haven't been super cheap. Pro/Rel can be exciting. It can reward higher performing teams. It would no doubt create a lot of value for the USLC teams that became the second division. But I don't think it is ever going to be a massive owner motivator in MLS. Most of the owners are actually pretty good at splashing cash these days. And you've got to be cheap AND suck for it to be overly relevant.
Well, of course. But USL has a long way to go before the quality of play is anywhere near MLS. I'm just trying to paint a picture of how you could see a second division AND compensate MLS owners to the point that they'd go for it.
What fundamentally hurts MLS is that it's not the top league in the World. The second thing that really hurts MLS is that MLS was not something cool to go to in the old MLS cities. The newer clubs came in when soccer had become counterculture cool, and created it as a thing for a certain portion of the population to do. Those are the big drivers. The rest people can quibble on, but that's all there is. On the first, while I think MLS can spend more on salary ... they can't sustainably spend enough to compete with the EPL or big time Champions League clubs. They might be able to blow away LigaMX, but when competing with them, you are also competing with cultural history. The second has proven a challenge. I think in smaller cities, it has and can be done -- see SKC. But none of the Big City teams have really pulled it off. Need a good team + good stadium to get that hype going. I'm not discounting your opinion on roster rules, but for every person like you ... there's the cap geeks who love it. I just don't see it as a driving force. There are definitely rich teams where people get annoyed they simply can't buy a better player, but I actually enjoy that teams can't simply buy a title. I expect the rules to slow simplify as more money gets spent. But I hope they never go. I love that it is still a league where teams can compete in different ways.
This is an odd discussion. The one advantage that MLS has had over older, better established, and richer leagues is that it's organized in a rational way line other US sports leagues. Now that we're just beginning to catch up to the old guard in some ways, folks want to adopt their goofiness? Should we also import their ref bribing and wage theft?
Looking at WS USMNT-eligible MLS top 40 rated players after matchday 4: 5th Tim Tillman 9th Cristian Roldan 10th Drake Callender 11th Jordan Morris 12th DeJuan Jones 14th Jesus Ferreira 20th Justen Glad 23rd Brandon Bye 24th Caleb Wiley 25th Aidan Morris 31th Andrew Gutman 40th Walker Zimmerman Wiley Ferreira Morris Tillman Morris Roldan Jones Glad Zimmerman Bye Callender Good group of flavors and a good starting XI!
Missing the playoffs in MLS is somewhat analogous to relegation. obviously it doesn't have ALL of the same consequences of being relegated but missing the playoffs in MLS is certainly seen as a failure. Any fan, coach, player or owner that wouldn't want to be relegated for competitive/status reasons would certainly want to avoid missing the playoffs. The only real difference is that missing the playoffs is often "clinched" sooner than relegation which often involves 2 or more teams down to the wire.
This is a temporary issue which is slowly getting whittled away. The bigger issue will be the Players Association, and negotiating a new CBA that would allow for pro/rel.
The problem as I see it is that the rules actively force teams to make poor roster decisions. If you're going to spend $20 million say, it's highly likely you create a better team, especially as the number of games played increases and depth becomes more important, if you spend say a million bucks each on 20 individual players rather than say $10 million split between 18 guys and $10 million on 2 stars. It incentivizes unbalanced rosters and teams based on a couple aging big money stars. That's before even getting into the confusion of making sense of it all.
I feel like rather than whittle it away, they keep creating more micro classes of players and adding to the confusion. If it eventually goes away, I will be glad for that but I'm not holding my breath.
Teams that miss the playoffs will generally turnover the roster pretty fast. Players primary motivation is to keep their jobs. Would relegation affect job security and salary more? Hurt pride more than winning a wooden spoon? Idk I think its mostly an argument about importance the fans put on the bottom of the standings, not really a player argument. If the spending up and down the rosters were more evenly distributed you would have more intense competition for spots and playing time, I don't think relegation in itself makes up that difference. The main difference is punishing owners and create tension for fans whose teams suck. (I will admit billionaire MLS owners are not the most sympathetic)
If they just made allocation balances and cap hits public it would go a long way. Removing some of the different buckets from YDP to U22 to DP / TAM would help, but it's annoying that each teams roster compliance is a black box. (Of course this helps MLS negotiate with other leagues etc, but it limits fan and pundit engagement)
Justen Glad is somehow still only 26 years old. He's played in over 200 career MLS games already. I just wonder if he's a guy we're really going to start appreciating more when he's 29. Sometimes these CBs are a slow gradual climb uphill.
I do think one advantage of simplifying alot of the rules is you'd be able to bring in better front office talent into the league. Right now you really do need someone who understands the idiosyncrasies of MLS and their roster rules. You're still going to have balance and what not because it's not like the salary cap is ever going to go away. But MLS has alot of rules which I don't think really do anything to advance competitive balance. Getting rid of the allocation order is the sort of thing that's a good step in the direction of what I'm thinking of.
Is 2 divisions a "pyramid"? I'd contend that rebranding San Antonio, Indianapolis, Louisville, etc. as being Major League Soccer would significantly step up interest in the team. And, they'd still have to buy their way in. It will be slow going, as owners willing to spend $300 million don't grow on trees.
I think the problem for the anti-relegation zealots, and the people who frame opposition to promotion/relegation around the US business environment and owners who want to protect their investment, is that the Expansion / Growth argument is reaching a culmination point. Unless the league suddenly decides to kick out Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, MLS can only realistically add 1-3 more clubs. So the question after the league reaches 32 is this: what's next? If MLS wants to continue to expand the pot of gold, then it can. But anything past 32 teams is going to reinvigorate the promotion/relegation argument.
Well I think you’d probably start with two divisions and build out from there. USL already has multiple divisions as it is likely to move promotion relegation before MLS ever gets involved. I think the USL owners for the most part don’t have the financial ability to buy into MLS. To the extent they do they’re the ones buying expansion spots in MLS.
Yeah, I think the nfl kind of sets thd standard in how no teams are drastically better than everyone else, and any team can compete at the top with a few breaks. MLS following that model is wise, IMO. A neutral fan can turn on a random game and expect it to be competitive, while fans of specific teams never have to feel like their team can’t compete. I enjoy watching mls primarily for the young talent, but I also like how games are competitive. I have no desire to see super teams dominate consistently, and several teams have no chance to win. The lopsided nature of the top leagues in Europe is probably my biggest gripe with those leagues, along with the oil clubs that spend outrageous amounts without worrying about profits. The two are closely related.
It's not coming from anywhere in 2023...but maybe in 2035 something like the EPL's $40M will be a possibility. But, I'm continuing to sidetrack this thread from it's purpose.
Well, for the record, I'm not proposing anything more than a 2nd MLS division. However that can be built in. No "pyramid." As for the source of the new teams, it seams natural that if there are successful, readymade teams, some with existing good stadiums, in good markets, they would be approached. Seems like an obvious first choice to couple an investor with the bucks to pay a franchise fee with an existing USL team. The investor buys a share of the USL team (majority?), pays a franchise fee, everyone wins. Investor gets a turnkey team with a stadium and an existing academy. MLS gets a ready-to-go team in a good to very good market, and their franchise fee. USL owner is suddenly a partial owner of an MLS team. Everyone is happy. All parties involved should be able to make the numbers work. Anyone have any idea what the highest valued USL team is? It's got to be a pittance compared to what MLS teams are valued at.
Yes... and no. I'm not entirely convinced that GMs would use it well, but theoretically, you are right. Teams should be somewhat better theoretically if GMs had less restrictions. But would the league be better? I'd say not. League mechanisms do the following: Despite the "aging big money star" label, that's not used nearly as much as it used to be. In many / most cases, the DPs being brought in are prime age players or even younger stars. Yes, there's Insigne and Costa, but DPs also gave Seattle Nico Lodeiro and Portland Diegos Valeri and Chara for almost a decade -- prime age stars the cities could call their own. Recent purchases like Riqui Puig or Thiago Almada are likely to get sold, but guys like Gazdag or Druissi or Mukhtar are huge for the fanbases. And while you can theoretically say those teams would have made the same acquisitions, the exemption from large transfer fees is a really big thing. MLS pushes teams to have stars for their local fanbases; it's the dumb franchises that get washed guys. I do think Nashville having Hany Mukhtar is better for Nashville and MLS than them paying their LB and their bench more money. The leagues mechanisms help to create an offensive league with fun offensive stars. Yes, please. Other mechanisms have other uses. It's definitely paternalistic, but I wouldn't want to see an MLS without a homegrown mechanism to incentive developing young players. The U22 initiative helps to build MLS as a developmental and selling league, which isn't so much about league quality as developing a long term revenue stream. TAM was originally created to bring in more quality rather than simply pay existing quality more; it's time is slowly phasing out. Oh, we can all pick at the amounts and which of these rules should go away and when. I don't disagree there are dumb ones and tweaks. But here's the thing: I like that the highest spending team in MLS is a shitshow (Toronto). I want St. Louis SC to be able to take the league by storm with a high effort, cohesive team with quality but no super expensive stars. I like that both Philly and LAFC are great. If you pull out all the special rules and just keep a cap, where do you set it? Where the league average is? No one is going to agree to the highest point -- where Toronto is, and I think people always assume that. And if you do that ... are the teams really that much better? The best teams generally don't have a bunch of highly paid DPs in terms of massive compensation (over $3M). Teams are already much deeper. There's basically as much GAM and TAM out there now as salary cap, so if you look at these rosters, you can get close to at least 11 deep with guys making at least $600-700k if you wanted. And I expect it will go further. But I'd hate to lose the aspect of any team, if well run, being able to compete for a title.
I think the Chicago Fire are an interesting case study. For years, the Fire sucked, and also didn't draw out in the suburbs. They had an underfunded, cheap owner. But they weren't relegated. Now they still suck. But it isn't for a lack of funding. Mansueto is putting literally hundreds of millions in to try and rejuvenate them, and I just don't know if you see that kind of cash influx in another environment. He doesn't need incentive to spend. His team needs to get better at it.